Slashdot reports on Apple's anti DRM again. Sadly none of the posters seem to understand why Jobs really doesn't care if Apple has DRM'd content or not. My brother explained this to me the other day and it was so obvious I wondered why it isn't more common. (See defective by design).
What does apple sell on iTunes? Audio in the .m4p format. Which is simply DRM around the AAC format. Now here's the quick question: How many portable devices play m4p? Well ipods (and itunes but let's ignore the computers) do and ummm, no one else. How many portable devices play aac format? Ummm, ipods and .... nope no one else. So even if Apple sold DRM free content, you would still need an ipod to listen to it. (Even if aac content was sold it would probably be a year or so til firmware supported it in non apple hardware).
Proving once again that Apple is a hardware company. They are out to sell [read lock you in to] their hardware. So it's hard to tell the sincerity of Steve Jobs, when this could really be just a ploy to appear to come down on the side of the consumer, when really you are still locked in to their platform (oh and they sell more ipods since you'll need one for the DRM-free music).
[disclaimer] my wife owns a nano... we have yet to visit itunes music store